User talk:SpikeToronto/Archive 1
IP range “salt” The protection does not apply to the entire range. I only protected User talk:112.206.0.0/21 because that page lists the IP range and no one can contribute as “112.206.0.0/21,” so it should not be created.—TK-999 14:11, September 24, 2011 (UTC) :Ah! I was not able to pick that up from your summary. I did debate with myself what the impact would be: Is the whole range of talkpages salted, or just the oddity of a talkpage named User talk:112.206.0.0/21? If you’re confident that talk pages within the range can still be created, then please revert my revert of you. :) Thanks! 14:17, September 24, 2011 (UTC) :I notice you salted User talk:112.206.200.227. From what you told me above, salting a range does not really salt the pages within the range, which was why I thought it would be okay for you to salt the range page as you explained it. But, salting individual IP-only pages is just something I have never seen done. I cannot recall it ever occuring at Wikipedia. With DHCP, someone else will be getting that IP address and not be able to use the talkpage, nor would we in order to contact them. This also leads me to something else: Softblocks, almost by definition, do not get set indefinitely. We really should reduce the rangeblock to one year. That’s usually the maximum for a non-proxy, non-zombie IP address. (Schoolblocks are usually for six months.) Thanks! 14:49, September 24, 2011 (UTC) ::Ah yes. I salted the wrong link instead of this, which is not a valid IP but the range, so no one can come and edit as “112.206.0.0/21.” Sorry!—TK-999 15:21, September 24, 2011 (UTC) :::Thanks! Did you adjust the softblocked range to one year? Thanks! 15:36, September 24, 2011 (UTC) Talkback Thanks for your messages at User talk:Jeff G.#Edit_for_your_review, please see my replies there. — Jeff G. ツ 16:30, November 11, 2011 (UTC) Talk: Main Page I was wondering why you restored the redirect from Talk:Main Page to Talk:Math Wiki. While the Main Page redirect is necessary, I fail to see why we should keep a talk page redirect.—TK-999 12:09, January 28, 2012 (UTC) :But why not? It errs on the side of caution. I usually keep the redirects paired when the pages are moved as a pair. — SpikeToronto 00:12, January 29, 2012 (UTC) Calculator Since this wiki is about maths, I've figured out how to make a addition calculator, just add the following to MediaWiki:Calculator: Value 1 Value 2 Value 3 Value 4 Output To insert it in a page, add Calculator —Sam Wang 09:39, March 23, 2012 (UTC) :At first glance, it looks okay Sam. Let us review the code a bit, and I’ll get back to you. Thanks! — SpikeToronto 18:58, March 23, 2012 (UTC) ::This is for adding 4 numbers up, you can adjust and format it anyway you want —Sam Wang 04:08, March 24, 2012 (UTC) :::Sam, we discussed this earlier today and decided not to implement it in on the wiki. Anyone accessing the wiki would be on a computer, iPad, etc., and they all have calculator apps that do more and are easily accessed by the user. However, if you would like to be able to use Calculator in your userspace, to have the calculator available for your personal use, I can go ahead and insert the code in MediaWiki:Calculator. Thanks! — SpikeToronto 04:30, March 24, 2012 (UTC) P.S. Sam, would you please change your signature code to the following: —'Sam Wang' It produces the same signature, but uses less code. Your current version leaves way too much code on talkpages. Thanks! — SpikeToronto 10:09, March 25, 2012 (UTC) Potential vandalism As requested, I'm just reporting some potential vandalism here.--Acer4666 (talk) 16:59, June 15, 2012 (UTC) :Done! Six-month softblock. No other vandalism to clear. Thanks!! :) — SpikeToronto 19:51, June 15, 2012 (UTC) ::and again--Acer4666 (talk) 09:19, June 16, 2012 (UTC) :::Thanks Acer. I believe, based on the IP addresses, that this is vandalism from a sockpuppeteer that we had last year. I’ve asked User:TK-999 to see if they can be included in the range we already softblocked for that individual. Thanks again! — SpikeToronto 21:46, June 16, 2012 (UTC) Broken math formulas I tried to copy a page from Wikipedia, wikipedia:Dimensional analysis, to the Units of Measurement wiki at w:c:units:Dimensional analysis, and some parts of it, starting with section 3.2, seem to be pretty badly messed up. Is there some problem you might be aware of in Wikia's MediaWiki software, or something that needs to be set to get things to render correctly? -- BruceG 00:43, July 4, 2012 (UTC) :That's a good article! I would encourage you to put it here too. :) The answer to your question is a bit complex. Nevertheless, finding the answer was quite revealing as it is most likely going to impact every page here at Mathematics Wiki also. Wikia runs mediawiki software version 1.20, while Wikia runs version 1.16.5. Wikia is in the process of upgrading to 1.19. Beginning with 1.18, in order for LaTeX formulas -- the method we use here -- to render correctly, the formulas have to be bracketed by tags. So, since neither the Dimensional Analysis wiki nor the Mathematics Wiki have the necessary extensions/parser hooks installed, the code you copied will not work. And, if I understand correctly, will not work when we are upgraded to 1.19. Moreover, again if I understand it correctly, the hundreds of pages here that currently use math formulas will cease to function without (a) the appropriate new extension being installed, and (b) every formula on the wiki being retroactively bracketed with tags. Not a pleasant thought, is it? Thank you for bringing this to our attention Bruce. — SpikeToronto 20:01, July 4, 2012 (UTC) :UPDATE: For the sake of analysis and discussion, I have placed the same article at Dimensional analysis. — SpikeToronto 20:32, July 4, 2012 (UTC) :: Before I logged in, the Dimensional analysis article looked fine, so I couldn't figure out what the fuss was about. But after I logged in, most of the math content (of that article) was completely broken (displaying the tags and raw LaTeX code), whether I used the old Monobook skin or newer Oasis skin (the only choices I have), and even after I reset all my preferences to the defaults. So I looked at other articles, and saw that they looked fine, too -- until I tried editing one (Circumscribed sphere): after making a trivial change (removing 1 of 3 newlines in a row near the bottom of the article) and saving, the raw LaTeX code was now being displayed. When I tried to simply undo my changes and go back to the previous version, it also was showing the raw LaTeX code! So, my assessment is this: somehow the math generation has gotten borked on this wiki and needs to be fixed by The Powers That Be. Whether that means waiting until the upgrade to MW1.19 or not, I don't know. BTW, ST, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "every formula on the wiki being retroactively bracketed with tags", since we've always used tags here and (until recently, apparently) they've always worked. AFAICT, as long as the Math extension is correctly installed/enabled, we shouldn't need to change anything on-wiki to make it work -- I mean, that's assuming this wiki worked like any other MediaWiki wiki, which is apparently a big assumption. In any case, I don't edit here anymore, and my experiences today haven't encouraged me to change that fact. - dcljr (talk) 23:18, July 4, 2012 (UTC) :::I'm a bit puzzled. Thje article in question already contained the tags, as far as I could tell. So I don't understand your comment that "every formula" needs to be "retroactively bracketed with tags." -- BruceG 02:26, July 5, 2012 (UTC) :::However, I did find — like Dcljr — that when I made an edit to fix something else all of a sudden the tags no longer worked. The actual problem may have been related to the fact that on some Wikipedia articles the and tags are not properly balanced, and I already found other cases where articles with this error looked all right on Wikipedia but not on Wikia. In fact I had been trying to find such, because the messed-up article looked like others where I'd found this problem. But I missed it — though I just found where it was. The only thing was that, when I fixed it, this new problem that Dcljr was talking about happened. -- BruceG 02:37, July 5, 2012 (UTC) ::::WP appears to have a "feature" that closes HTML tags at the end of a paragraph, while Wikia appears not to have such a "feature". That having been written, the way this wiki is processing math indeed appears borked. :( — Jeff G. ツ 21:12, July 5, 2012 (UTC) :::::Thanks for the feedback. Based on what Dcljr said, we should be okay. But, I still do not understand the problem, then, with Dimensional analysis. Why is it breaking? Could it be Wikia’s unique Oasis editor? Also, regarding Jeff’s comment, if the closing of tags is not some feature of a MW software version greater than 1.16.5, chances are the tags are being closed by a bot (which Wikipedia has by the score), or it is the work of the gnomes that fix Wikipedia articles with AWB. — SpikeToronto 23:01, July 5, 2012 (UTC) ::::::It can't be a bot, because the problems with the unclosed HTML tags come when you directly copy something from WP. If a bot had actually gone through and closed the tags, when I copied the WP article, it would have been fixed by the presumed bot. It must be in fact a difference in WP's processing of the wikitext from Wikia's. -- BruceG 23:17, July 5, 2012 (UTC) :::::::Thing is, Bruce, only the Sinebot runs constantly. Other bots sometimes take awhile to come through and fix things. Or, if you’re right, then it’s the gnomes with AWB! ;) — SpikeToronto 23:21, July 5, 2012 (UTC) (reset indent) This has been reported to Wikia Staff. Please see http://tinyurl.com/6ts2p7t Thanks! — SpikeToronto 00:07, July 6, 2012 (UTC) :So this requires them to install the math extensions to MediaWiki, which hopefully they will do soon. Meanwhile, my original problem turned out to be what I had thought — where it needed to have — nothing having to do with the tags at all. -- BruceG 00:40, July 6, 2012 (UTC) :I can't see how the business with WP and Wikia handling these things can be bots or AWB. In either case, the wikitext would be fixed by the procedure, and copying from WP should give something that works — but it doesn't. If it was a case of a bot not having done its job yet, then WP would not look right either. So the only thing I can see is that WP's version of MediaWiki works differently from Wikia's, as Jeff was implying. -- BruceG 00:45, July 6, 2012 (UTC) ::I think Jeff was making the point that open-ended statements at WP get fixed somehow, yet this article was not so corrected. My point was that perhaps that meant that the appropriate bot had not been run, or an AWBer had not been through cleaning up the article as part of his/her list of articles to be cleaned. Also, since we are more than four versions of the MediaWiki software behind, there are very definitely differences in how things are processed/rendered between us and WP. Finally, unless one is working in Monobook, we use a very different RTE (editor) in Oasis than anything at WP. This last point might explain why Dcljr said that everything was fine, until he tried to edit, and then how the article was rendered changed. Otherwise, I am stumped. — SpikeToronto 00:52, July 6, 2012 (UTC) :::I didn't read Jeff's comment the way you did. The Dimensional analysis article looked just fine on Wikipedia, but not when I copied it to my Wikia wiki. So Wikipedia fixed up the unbalanced tags, not by changing the wikitext, but in the way MediaWiki rendered the wikitext when a user viewed the page. -- BruceG 00:59, July 6, 2012 (UTC) ::::Then it’s a difference of software versions, then. I was trying to reconcile the comments made by Jeff with those made by Dcljr. — SpikeToronto 01:07, July 6, 2012 (UTC) :::::My suspicion about what happened to Dcljr was coincidence. Just about the same time he did the edit, Wikia probably changed the software in the way that broke the math formulas. Since the comments that your tinyurl reference pointed to showed this is happening on other wikis, this seems to be the problem. -- BruceG 01:25, July 6, 2012 (UTC) Navigation heading HEy, any idea what has happened to the top of this wiki where the navigation is? There's a big gap, dunno what's caused it all of a sudden--Acer4666 (talk) 02:07, July 22, 2012 (UTC) :Wikia came through and upgraded us from MediaWikia 1.16.5 to 1.19. There are some initial teething problems with the upgrade, for which Wikia will be pushing out fixes. — SpikeToronto 12:35, July 22, 2012 (UTC) :P.S. Acer, perhaps you might like to create a page in the Project namespace for us to use to keep track of any oddities that are the result of the upgrade? Then, we could pass it on to Staff. You could put it at Mathematics:Software upgrade issues 2012 (click on redlink!). What do you think? Thanks! — SpikeToronto 05:00, July 23, 2012 (UTC) :P.P.S. Acer, if you tell me what you want in the Navigation section of the menu, I’ll add it back in. Thanks! — SpikeToronto 06:54, July 23, 2012 (UTC) ::Still haven't fixed the problem with , though, I see. -- BruceG (talk) 13:48, July 22, 2012 (UTC) ::Er, at least on some wikis. It seems OK on Circumscribed sphere on this one, but not on w:c:units:Dimensional analysis. -- BruceG (talk) 13:50, July 22, 2012 (UTC) :::And not working, last time I checked, at Euler's totient function#Obtaining a formula. — SpikeToronto 04:55, July 23, 2012 (UTC) ::::Oh? That page looks OK to me. -- BruceG (talk) 10:47, July 23, 2012 (UTC) Dealing with time Hi! I'm new and I can here to see if there were any pages of Elapsed Time or Adding Time. I couldn't find any about that. Is there a page? If so, can you show me where? Thanks!Suji500 (talk) 01:12, October 12, 2012 (UTC) :Hi Suji. I could not find anything. But, you should take a look at these two searches and see if you can find anything: :* Search #1 :* Search #2 :Good luck! — SpikeToronto 21:36, October 15, 2012 (UTC) ::You might want to check out the article Modular arithmetic, as essentially that is what you have to employ when making calculations involving time--Acer4666 (talk) 23:22, October 15, 2012 (UTC) ::Thanks Acer! As you can tell, I am more concerned with maintenance here, as I am not the math person that people like you are. Thanks again! — SpikeToronto 02:09, October 16, 2012 (UTC) Wikipedia content Hey Spike - just a quick note about copying whole articles from wikipedia onto the site. While I know if you use the proper attribution etc. it is legal, I'm wondering...is there any point? If we're just going to duplicate wikipedia content on this site, why have the site at all? To me it seems much better to write our own articles here rather than lift them directly from elsewhere. I know a few wikis that have policies about this. That's my view anyway--Acer4666 (talk) 23:40, November 8, 2012 (UTC) :Hey Acer! Thanks for bringing this up for discussion. It’s a very important topic for subject-specific wikis here at Wikia. The way I see it, Wikia wikis that focus on a specific topic (e.g., math, tea, etc.) have an opportunity to gather together, all in one place, all the Wikipedia articles on that topic (properly attributed, of course!). These act as a base of articles sufficient to attract visitors to our wiki. Then, our wiki needs to spend time improving those articles, making them even better than they were when they originated at Wikipedia. Moreover, because Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia, they cannot possibly exhaust the subject. But, a specialist encyclopedia — like ours — can add to the subject matter by creating even more articles and filling in the holes necessarily left by a generalist encyclopedia. — SpikeToronto 23:59, November 8, 2012 (UTC) Block You need to unblock , he was not vandalising anything, he was correcting typos on the article to change what was a trivial result into a proper provable fact (ie, the reverse triangle inequality)--Acer4666 (talk) 12:12, December 2, 2012 (UTC) :Really?! Thanks for clearing that up! Two points, though: :* the block is only a soft block, which means anyone at that IP address can still edit, so long as he is signed in :* Had he explained his edits in the edit summary space provided, it is probable that no action would have been taken (neither the revert, nor the soft-block) :Thanks again for your help. As always, it is truly appreciated. — SpikeToronto 12:24, December 2, 2012 (UTC) Another chance may I have another chance? It has been well over 1 year since the August date before. Zompenguin (talk) 16:06, December 17, 2012 (UTC) :Let me talk about it with others here in the Math Wiki community. Prima facie, I do not see why not. Be patient and I’ll get back to you. — SpikeToronto 18:38, December 17, 2012 (UTC) ::yay!!! was it really that long? sorry, I made another account in Sept. but abandoned it in F'eb. (globally banned). I missed the f'u'n in wikia. It has been 10 months since I have stopped being a'c'tive in any of the wi'k'is. --Zompenguin (talk) 15:59, December 18, 2012 (UTC) :::It hasn’t been decided yet. I will let you know. You must not edit on Math Wiki until it’s been decided. (You can edit on this talkpage and yours, of course.) I do not get to decide this on my own. — SpikeToronto 17:46, December 18, 2012 (UTC) At the '''f'irst place, don't yo'''u now that I am not blo'ck'ed right now? --Zompenguin (talk) 09:36, December 19, 2012 (UTC) :Obviously I know, or I'd not have made the preceding statement. Okay. We've discussed it, and you are welcome to contribute positively to the Math Wiki, subject to these conditions: :# you must always sign in to edit :#* absolutely no anonymous, IP-only editing :# absolutely no sock-puppeting :#* you can edit only from one account → User:Zompenguin :# this is a math wiki :#* do not post anything that is not math-related :# be respectful in your communications with others :# if for some reason you should ever be blocked (e.g., a three-day block), do not take any actions intended to get around that block :#* stick only to commenting on your user talkpage → User talk:Zompenguin :#* do not IP edit to avoid the block :#* do not create another account to avoid the block :#* do not track down admins on other wikis to discuss your block :#** any of these actions will result in a block turning in to a ban/permablock :None of these conditions is particularly onerous. They are, in fact, the conditions that all productive Wikians operate under everyday. We just want to be sure that you know you are not exempt from them. So, welcome back! I know you love math, so I cannot wait to see the wonderful contributions you will be making to the Mathematics wiki. — SpikeToronto 10:11, December 19, 2012 (UTC) :Also, please don't piss off us admins and crats. Indiscriminate use of bolding within words will tend to piss me off. — Jeff G. ツ 02:40, December 20, 2012 (UTC) ::Especially when the bolding is spelling out f-u-c-k. Perhaps, Jeff, he’s not really serious about a second chance after all? :( — SpikeToronto 06:56, December 20, 2012 (UTC) Block me, you @$$4013 lol, what I wrote on the triangle thing is correct, you paranoid Please block me for 1 month. I need to focus on other things. But don't block me infinitely. Zompenguin (talk) 10:39, December 20, 2012 (UTC) :You misinterpret, ZP. Firstly, I am not a mathematician. I frequently ask others to look at new edits for me, because I simply do not know otherwise. I do it here all the time. It’s not paranoia; it’s to compensate for my own mathematical shortcomings. Secondly, you are not blocked. If you were you would not have been able to edit this page. One of your conditions is to always sign in to edit. The soft block on your IP address just forces you to log in. I did it so you wouldn’t have to worry about forgetting again. — SpikeToronto 19:41, December 20, 2012 (UTC) Block me, you *** ***** ****** Hey, you *** ***** ******, block my for 1 month or else I would spam you. I need to focus on other things first then I'll get back to Wikia soon. If you just need a legit reason to block me, here are the BAD words. **** **** **** **** **** :You have been blocked indefinitely (Intimidating behaviour/harassment: Second chance over. Deal only w/ Staff from now on.) — Jeff G. ツ 19:50, December 30, 2012 (UTC) :Your block is now expanded. — Jeff G. ツ 14:26, December 31, 2012 (UTC) Admin, etc. __NOWYSIWYG__ How do you become an admin? User:Ssfang (talk) 04:21, September 27, 2013 (UTC) Can you tell me what these mean? Hello Ssfang. We do not need any more admins at this time. As for those tags, you might find http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp useful. In the meantime, * is used to format text so that it looks like programming code. * is used to format/style a large block like this, my whole response to you. * is used to format/style a line. I have used each of these in this response. You can see how by looking at the text in source-mode edit. — SpikeToronto 05:47, September 27, 2013 (UTC) Hey I'm a New User Hey I'm a new user on the math wiki who is really passionate about it. I also have lots of ideas for badges, categories, and edit tracks. Need any Admins? By any chance are you looking for admins? This wiki has been a bit inactive lately and I want to contribute to it and make it as good as I can. -Phoenixbender —The preceding undated comment was made 23:21, November 22, 2013‎ (UTC). Grafting Numbers Hello, over the past year I have been researching Grafting Numbers off and on and have written a paper on the topic that has recently been accepted for publication in JCMCC. I am trying to update and add to current references to the numbers so that the information is correct. I'm not that good at writing wiki pages, however so am open to help from others. Thanks. Rtanniru (talk) 09:41, November 30, 2013 (UTC)Rob Adminship Greetings SpikeToronto. Since I am one of the few active editors here (only two edits have been made in the last week that were not by me), would you mind making me an admin? Thanks, --Dinoenthusiastguy (talk) 21:34, February 21, 2014 (UTC) :Hi enthusiastic Dino! I am going to be more active here starting in April. At that time, we can start working together on administering the wiki. Thanks! — SpikeToronto 22:27, February 21, 2014 (UTC) ::Great! Also, would you mind deleting the page Function for aljebra? --Dinoenthusiastguy (talk) 18:47, February 22, 2014 (UTC) :::Hey Spike, me again. I found the page Ar:محيط_(هندسة_رياضية), which seems to be about mathematics, but obviously it's not in English. I don't know what to do with the page, so I just thought I'd bring it to your attention. --Dinoenthusiastguy (talk) 19:20, March 8, 2014 (UTC) :::: Deleted. Thanks! — SpikeToronto 19:54, March 8, 2014 (UTC) Physics Greetings SpikeToronto. I just wanted to know, is this wiki for pure mathematics or is it alright if we have articles on Physics related articles as well, such as rectilinear motion or acceleration? Thanks, --Dinoenthusiastguy (talk) 19:07, March 1, 2014 (UTC) :Good question. There is a Math & Physics wiki here at Wikia. I've thought perhaps we should merge with them… — SpikeToronto 15:24, April 13, 2014 (UTC) ::I agree, especially since at a higher level they have so much in common. Thanks for the adminship BTW! Also, have you noticed how we now have 666 pages on the wiki? --Dinoenthusiastguy (talk) 01:40, April 14, 2014 (UTC) :::Yep. We need a new page … and fast! :O — SpikeToronto 07:32, April 14, 2014 (UTC) ::::It's OK, I just exorcised the wiki with Riemann sum! --Dinoenthusiastguy (talk) 21:38, April 14, 2014 (UTC) :::::Whew! I feel much relieved. ;) — SpikeToronto 03:50, April 15, 2014 (UTC) Re: Chat and edits Greetings! As far as I can tell all of these edits are good, but some of them are beyond my knowledge as well. Most of Jagged's edits are fixing formatting, spelling mistakes, etc. although his mathematical edits seem fine as well (although a lot are beyond my level). :I'd like to have a chat as well. Should we set up a time for it? --Dinoenthusiastguy (talk) 19:43, May 24, 2014 (UTC) ::Sorry I have not scheduled this yet. :( It is very important since it will help you and I to better admin the site. By the way, do you have a Dinoenthusiastguy account on Skype? If not, we can use the chatroom here on the wiki. On a different topic — and I apologize if I am asking you to do something you already do — don’t forget to regularly monitor ' ' for people’s edits to the wiki. Thanks! — SpikeToronto 11:09, May 30, 2014 (UTC) :::Unfortunately, I do not have a Skype account, so we'll have to use the chat on the wiki. Would 3:00 PST work for you? And I'll be sure to look at the recent changes more often! --Dinoenthusiastguy (talk) 21:14, May 30, 2014 (UTC) ::::I only just got this message at about 3:23PM-PDT. My local time, by the way, is at the top of both my user and talk pages. Sorry I missed you. — SpikeToronto 22:25, May 30, 2014 (UTC) :::::How about 23:00 UTC then? --Dinoenthusiastguy (talk) 22:45, May 30, 2014 (UTC) ::::::That’s FIVE (5) minutes from now, right? — SpikeToronto 22:54, May 30, 2014 (UTC)